October 2013

10/31/2013

Five hundred thirty eight certified passers successfully navigated July's bar exam. That number is up 13.5 percent from last year's certified passer list.

To all of you who passed, congratulations. We can't wait to welcome you to State Bar of Michigan membership.

If you happened to spot a previous blog post that claimed the number of bar exam passers was down, we apologize. In our haste to get the statistics posted for you, we inadvertently skipped a page of passers and posted the wrong number the first time. It was not intended to be a Halloween scare tactic.

Many of you have raised interesting points that we'd like to incorporate into this post, to further explain what we are reporting to you:

Casual Observer said...

This
is simply a count of the list released on Tuesday. Of more interest
would be the number of people who passed irrespective of their other
qualifications, along with the total number of takers, which I
understand is also close to a record high (potentially making the RATE
of passage the lowest ever).

- See more at:
http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2013/10/bar-exam-pass-statistics-.html#comment-6a0120a7ae33fa970b019b008ae3a2970c

Anon said...

I
don't think that saying the pass rate is up 13.5% is the most
academically honest thing to say either. The number of bar exam passers
is up 13.5%, but based on the numbers that I've seen, the overall pass
rate is up ~5% from last July.

- See more at: http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2013/10/bar-exam-pass-statistics-.html#comments

Anon said...

I
don't think that saying the pass rate is up 13.5% is the most
academically honest thing to say either. The number of bar exam passers
is up 13.5%, but based on the numbers that I've seen, the overall pass
rate is up ~5% from last July.

- See more at: http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2013/10/bar-exam-pass-statistics-.html#comments

Anon said...

Were there not only 529 passers last July before appeals? That would be a less than 2% increase.

- See more at: http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2013/10/bar-exam-pass-statistics-.html#comments

You're comparing apples to oranges by
comparing the July 2013 certified passing list to the total number of
passers from the July 2012 exam. The total number of passers on the July
2012 exam includes those whose "holds" were released, and those who had
successful appeals to the exam results. The only number we have to go
on from the Board of Law Examiners at this point is just the list of
certified passers, which does not include the number with holds on their
results or the number who will appeal their results successfully. So
we're comparing the July 2013 certified passers to the July 2012
certified passers, and that is where we came up with the 13.5 percent
increase in passers.

The number of certified passers for the
July 2012 exam was 529 as Confused stated. Therefore, Confused is
comparing certified passers to certified passers (not apples to
oranges). (The number after appeals for the July 2012 exam was 549.) A
jump from 529 to 538 does not equal 13.5%

Last October, SBM staff counted the
initial list of certified passers that was posted on the Board of Law
Examiners website when it was first released. The number of names listed
on that initial list was 474. We got the 13.5 percent increase by
comparing the number of names of certified passers from this year's
list, (538) and compared it to the number of names from the same list
last year (474), as these numbers are on an "apples to apples" basis.
The total number of passers that the BLE published for the July 2012
exam after "holds" were released and appeals granted totaled 549. There
is nothing yet to compare that number to, because the BLE has not yet
published a number of July 2013 bar exam passers after holds are lifted
and appeals granted.

I was also very disappointed to see this
article yesterday. It really has no value and I find it insulting as
someone who sat for the July 2012 bar exam, as it implies there was
something inherently wrong with that group of applicants. It is
frustrating to watch the State Bar of Michigan continue to defend the
actions of the BOLE during the July 2012 bar exam. Very, very
disappointing. Please save your articles for real statistics instead of
using a faulty method of calculating to try to make your opinion known.

Please be clear -- the State Bar has not
defended the administration of the 2012 bar exam or any other bar exam
sitting. In fact, the State Bar has asked questions about consistency
and advocated for greater transparency. If our blog posts, offered in
the spirit of sharing the data we get as soon as we get it, have created
any other inference in any reader's mind that is unfortunate and
unintended.

Three years of successful argumentation in seven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court earned Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch a nod from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog this month. On December 2, he will argue his eighth case, Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community. And now comes news that Bursch will be leaving to return to the Warner Norcross and
Judd LLP firm on December 6. Attorney General Bill Schuette said “I will miss John’s advice and counsel immensely. John and his wife Angela are
wonderful friends, and I understand his responsibilities to his wife and children.
I wish John and his family nothing but the best."

10/30/2013

In testimony yesterday on SB 652, the Michigan Senate Judiciary committee got a lesson in the history of the Court of Claims -- and voted to report out a bill that would change history again. Current statute provides that the Court of Claims, which hears cases involving claims of $1,000 or more against the state, is a function of the Ingham County circuit court. SB 652 would instead have the cases heard by four Court of Appeals judges selected by the Michigan Supreme Court. Prior to 1939, the committee was told, claims against the state were handled
by the executive branch. After that, Court of Claims cases were heard by circuit court judges throughout the state assigned to the Court of Claims by the State
Court Administrative Office. In 1978 the cases were consolidated in the Court of Claims as a function of the Ingham County circuit court. The 1978 change was advanced as a cost-savings move because the Attorney General's office, located in Ingham County, provides the defense in Court of Claims cases.

Proponents of the bill challenged the wisdom of all Court of Claims cases being heard by judges elected by only 3% of the electorate, and said that the ability to file claims outside of Ingham County would offer greater convenience to the public. Under the bill, a Court of Claims case would be
heard in the Court of Appeals district of the judge assigned to the case. The bill's opponents challenged the propriety of appellate judges sitting as trial judges on cases that would then be heard on appeal by their colleagues.

The bill was reported out of committee on a party-line vote, with all Republicans voting for the bill, and all Democrats voting against.

First, celebrate. Next, accept our warm congratulations. You are now eligible to join one of the best state bar associations in the country, a 79-year old institution with an unmatched reputation for integrity, excellence, and outstanding service to its members and the public.

Here's what comes next:

All persons who are licensed to practice law in Michigan must be members
of the State Bar of Michigan. In order to become a member of the State
Bar, you must first take steps to become admitted. If you've recently passed the bar exam, the Board of Law Examiners has mailed you a certificate of qualification. A current, active member of the State Bar must file this certificate and a motion seeking your admission to the State Bar in the Supreme Court or a circuit court. You must also appear personally in open court to be administered the oath of office. View the rule describing the steps to follow in taking the oath of office as a lawyer.

Next, you will need to complete a membership
application and pay your membership
dues. To complete the State Bar of Michigan new member application online
and pay your member dues with a Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card,
visit the Bar's Member Area
and create an account as a "Prospective New Member & Non-Member." Do not create an account online until you have been sworn in. If you wish to complete the paper application and pay your member dues with a check, download the new member application form.

Finally, you must provide the State Bar with a true or certified copy of the Order of Admission
certified by the County Clerk. Some courts provide the Order of Admission directly to the
State Bar. If you wish, you may mail your true or certified copy of the
Order of Admission signed by the County Clerk to the State Bar of
Michigan, Attention Finance, 306 Townsend St., Lansing, MI 48933.

You have come to the end of a long and difficult road and now begin a journey that holds the promise of great satisfaction and achievement. The State Bar will be there to help.

The passage rate for Michigan's bar exam has been the subject of attention since its plunge a year ago. The 2013 July bar passers are announced online today after noon, and the data on Michigan's passage rate is expected shortly thereafter. (SBM Blog will post.) Are recent low passage rates an anomaly, or the new normal? A University of St. Thomas law professor writes at Legal Whiteboard that an overall decline in the LSAT scores of admitted law students may portend a drop in the passage rate nationwide in 2016. He calls the entering class of 2013's LSAT profile “almost certainly
the weakest of any class going back to fall 2002." But TaxLawProf's Paul Caron points to a new study that says that law school grade point averages,not LSAT scores, are the best predictor of bar exam passage success.

If you turn to the gentlemen at the top of the current political heap for career dress advice, it turns out you get two pretty interesting answers. A Traverse City Eagle piece by George Weeks reveals that Michigan's governor has thought this through and decided that wearing a tie inhibits creativity. The Governor's deputy press secretary told Weeks that the idea of going tieless came to the Governor when he was addressing a crowd of suited-and-tied innovators and entrepreneurs:

The governor said innovators need to be different and think
differently. They need to be bold and they need to challenge the way
things normally work to find new and better ways. He said the idea came
to him to take off the tie, breaking from accepted practice at the
time.

The Governor does defer to custom and don a tie on particular occasions -- funerals, weddings, in the Michigan House of Representatives, and at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, after 6 p.m., for instance.

President Obama has also been known suit up without a tie on some public occasions, including high profile economic summits. The President talked about his distinctly uncreative dressing decisions with Michael Lewis for Lewis's "Obama's Way" piece in Vanity Fair:

“You’ll see I wear
only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down
decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or
wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned
research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s
ability to make further decisions.